So, we’re 3 1/2 weeks away from the wedding that BoyPenguin and I decided last week to have. So far, we have a park, a caterer, dessert(s), a photographer, disposable bamboo platterware and silverware, mason jars with handles, and two very excited flower girls. Nearly everyone we want there will be there, and things are actually coming together pretty well for something like this that we decided to do a month out.

The only thing that’s been hard is my mom. The day we decided to do the wedding was the same day my brother got divorced. She’s been very sad and angry and just wrapped up in his stuff for a long time. But since it was the same day as his divorce, I hadn’t expected her to be super happy that day. But in the days since, she’s shown very little interest or enthusiasm. I guess I always hoped my mom would be happy for me, but she has yet to really express that.

The other day, she overstepped a pretty obvious boundary with my brother: she contacted his therapist. Not for info; she knew the therapist couldn’t say anything. But she was wondering if she should fly out there on father’s day to spend time with Brother and the two of them could go to a counseling session together. The therapist was hesitant and said it’d be best to talk to Brother first.

Brother was pissed. Mom has since talked to her own therapist and her astrologer, both of whom have said she’s too enmeshed with his life. So she’s kind of trying to take some steps back from that. But every conversation with her has revolved around or ended up on the discussion of Brother.

I love my brother. I am sad for what he’s going through. But I don’t want to keep talking about what he should or shouldn’t do and listening to her try and plan his life for him when we live 2000 miles away, and he’s not receptive to a lot of things right now.

I also have thought back on my life and realized that a lot of my mom’s energy and worry and emotions have revolved around Brother and how to help him, what’s wrong in his life, etc., etc., etc. And I’ve always been to do some adjustment for him in some large or small way.

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Brother will be at the wedding; we moved it so he’d be here when we did it. But moving forward with my mom, I’m having a hard time not feeling kind of sad that my mom couldn’t find it in herself to be happy for me, but instead is still focused on being unhappy with and for and involved with my brother and his life.